Howling Shadow
by Moony73
Summary: Compainion to Due Death… The death has passed… Those who are still alive… Are being threatened… By only a shadow… A dangerous shadow… A threatening, wailing shadow that lurks… Somewhere out there… In the darkness… A clawing raging, danger.
1. Recurring Nightmares

_**Howling Shadow**_

_Blood is spilt…_

_The death has passed…_

_But the one who should have paid with their life…_

_Still lives on…_

_In guilt…_

_Or in Joy…_

_But those who are not meant to be dead…_

_Seem it…_

_And the worst is coming…_

_Blood is spilling over the brim…_

_And those who are still alive…_

_Are being threatened…_

_By only a shadow…_

_A dangerous shadow…_

_A threatening, wailing shadow that lurks…_

_Somewhere out there…_

_In the darkness…_

_Howling Shadow_

_K. T. Ochle_

_

* * *

She was once again yanked out of the dazed, dizzying feeling that overcame her. The aromas overwhelmed her nostrils and they flared once again, her body growing stone cold, even though the liquid, sticky, thick, was moist. Yes, it kept her body warm, but as she was thrown against the tiled wall, she grew cold in a matter of seconds. There was another snarl, and the screaming continued after the silent period. But that time did not last long and he did not let her heal fast enough from the previous attack. He continued to rant, snarling, showing his sharp canines, questioning her, inquiring, rather screaming, about where they were, about what had happened, and why she was so important on the matter. _

_She didn't let tears come. There was no need for them anymore. They did not help her relinquish the hurt so much as clear her eyes of the thick ooze that surround her in a pool. He thrashed about, the shower and downpour ceased for a moment before he once again clasped the hair of her crown and threw her underneath the fountain of blood. He threw her head back so hard that her neck joint popped, but she ignored it. The only thing that was attacking her, that was making her weaker, was the blood that poured into her mouth. She wanted to spit it out, half of her tasting the foulness of it, the coppery, metallic tinge it had, but the other half of her, the half that hadn't taken over yet, the part of her that wanted to attack the man so savagely, tasted something different and wanted the taste there. _

_But as soon as he released her and let her fall against the wall, she spat out the semi-offending blood in a spurt, droplets of it flecking his face. He growled in a threateningly low tone, but she chose to ignore it and not abide by his threats, which were so obviously look at as rules by so many others. _

_This man was hurting her so badly, and he had hurt others as well, others that was dear to her, that were so important to her, that she wanted to murder him ever since her eyes had set sight on him. But she had been ordered to look out for him; although, ironically, she found herself being taken captive not so long after that command. Though warned of the danger, she had arrogantly meandered around the subject of fighting against him and his league. Now she found that she should have listened, but she was not going to give up on what she was supposed to do. _

_He wanted information, yes, he wanted it, but he had not gotten anything out of her since his torture session had begun. She watched him with cold eyes, noticing that his clothes had gotten soaked, not exactly he had intended. He spoke once again, his screams not seeming so far away as she resurfaced from thinking. _

"_TELL ME WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE! WHERE DID THEY GO?! WHAT DID HE DO WITH THE GIRL?! I WANT HER! YOU CAN GO THE HELL BACK WHEREEVER I TOOK YOU FROM! JUST GIVE ME THAT GODDAMNED CHILD AND YOU AN RETURN TO THAT BASTARD YOU CALL A HUSBAND! JUST GIVE THE FUCKING CILG OVER TO ME! TELL ME… Why does he want her so badly when she almost tried to kill him? Why are you letting him keep her when she almost tried to kill you, when she almost took hi away from you?" His voice was dangerously low and she could barely hear his voice over the roar of the spout. She continued to stare distantly at the black, darkened blood that stained the ceramic of the basin. _

_She knew that he had a point… Why did she want her there? Why did she want the girl in safe arms when she had almost killed the both of them? He meant so much to her, but what was it about the girl that kept her so attached to her. Was it because she was young? Was it because she was his daughter? She didn't know as she pondered the subject. Something about the girl… she didn't know as he continued his torture, screaming over and over again the lines of terrible threats, blood continued to fill her mouth, covering her hair, her face, filling her nostrils with the aroma of raw meat, something she so suddenly wanted. _

_And she wondered… How had she come to be in the basin, tortured at the hands of a man that had been so horrible to so many, that turned his back on normal living itself, in the rags of torn clothing that must have once been either a old, stitched sheet, or a very thin, worn blanket. _

"_TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE, GODDAMN IT!" He continued his rage… _

_But soon she found herself in containment, something she had looked forward to… And continued to ponder and wonder about how she had come to be in such conditions, wondering if anyone had gone through what she was going through. And the thought of returning to civilized living, daylight, and the arms of the people she knew, the thought of not being able to, of that being a faraway dream left her when her eyes closed and her mind gave into the welcoming darkness. _

"_NO!" The voice raged on, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE… KILLED HIM IS WHAT YOU'VE DONE, WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!" _

_She pushed and shoved, trying to throw the man away, trying to get him to stop looming over the body, his haggard features full of triumph. _

_Selina tried with all her might, "YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER GIT, YOU MUREDERED HIM, HE WAS MY FATHER!"_

"_HE WAS WORTHLESS AND YOU KNOW IT!" His voice suddenly dropped to a husky whisper, his voice low, persuading, soft as it always was, always had been, "Now, love, you will be mine. You will be all mine, my darling, come to me." His voice, however sweet and velvety, soft and silken, was ignored; she was finally able to ignore that calm, gentle, persuading voice. But what worried her was the fact that her father, lying beaten, bleeding, dying on the ground, had stopped her. _

_She stared deeply at those deeply set yellow, golden, eyes. They tried to lure her, tried to get her to follow his orders, his demands, and they were finally unsuccessful. She was free. _

"_EVERYTHING YOU'VE TOLD ME HAS BEEN RUBBISH! YOU TRIED TO GET ME TO KILL HIM! IT'S YOUR FAULT, ALL OF YOUR FAULT!" Her voice raged on. And she was finally able to rebel against him, but it also earned her a slap on the face. _

"_Now that I have finally found you, you will listen to me." His voice was once again soft, softer than it had ever been, though this time he was trying to get her to listen, trying to make her believe what he spoon-fed her, and he did it slowly to reassure her, "_She _turned you in, it was her. And I killed him for your sake. I'm going to be your father now—" _

"_BOLLOCKS! I'm never going to believe any of the shit you say anymore! She never did anything and you killed my father just because I wanted to stay with him and I turned my back on you! I am_ never _listening to you again!" And so she didn't… she had finally fought back…_

_Although it had cost her father his life…_


	2. Claustrophobic Prey

_Claustrophobic Prey_

Selina woke gasping for breath, water, _not_ blood, surrounding her in an absolute cocoon of warmth. "D-daddy!"

The white-washed, bleached tile of the bathroom's walls sweated in the warmth of the shower water. She had fallen asleep in the wallowed out tub. She became frantic when no one's voice called out to her. Where exactly was she anyway. And where was Dora? She was supposed to be at home around five. The linoleum of the bathroom floor opened up to the crazy, dizzying pattern of inch by inch tile floors, almost like the ones she saw in a gas station bathroom . . . Or a hospital.

Struggling for breath, she bolted wet and dripping from the bathtub, slipping almost on the droplet-choked floors. Her hands fluttered like a trapped animal for a handhold on something, anything. But the crinkles of her fingers found no solace in just barren, desolate bleached towel. She was gasping for air; in a hysterical panic, she aimed for the door her breath a ragged scream against the silence. There was nothing hidden from her in this numbing unfamiliar room. It was just a small bathroom. And the walls were constricting her small being in a matter of seconds. She could feel each of the sides of the room falling in towards her, closing in on her like a predator does a helpless bite of prey. She shivered, gasping against tantalizing adrenaline that rushed cold and fearless through her, the salt of her tears staining her cheeks, biting at her lips like those of a forgotten someone. Someone she hated with every fiber of her being.

Her painful, agonizing terror-filled shriek reached a few passing figures in the hall. "GET AWAY FROM ME!" Her voice rose a few octaves in the moments of confusion and absolute chaos. People came from this way and that, looking for the cause of the sudden injection of obnoxious noise.

Nurses in the blankness of white uniforms came to her, placed her underneath the waiting sheets of her bed, and kept her pressed against the bed; the force of five or six nurses weren't enough as they fought her writhing, blind form, fought against her struggle from whatever horror they couldn't see. Whatever bloody and apparently horrific, terrible nightmare was haunting her.

In the matter of a few hours, she was still, unconscious, an surrounded by only three people: The tatty, weary figure of a lanky man and a worried, sleep-deprived woman who huddled against the man next to her. And the closest of the three was whatever advancing shadow of a predator that had forced her into this coma of dazed sleep.

"Are you sure she'll be okay here, Remus? I mean, it's only been two days. And this was the first day that she was awake. The doctor told me that she was muttering in her sleep. He said that she may be forcing herself to see some sort of dream or nightmare. He also said that when they did a medical observation that she had been forced into some sort of sexual battery."

The hitch in Remus' voice did nothing to sooth her worst fears. Selina had gone through so much. Hell, she had even been forced through a corner to kill her own father. Tonks wrapped her arms around Remus' waist in a protective gesture at that thought. "God . . . Dora, I'm not even sure she'll be okay at home." He sounded so unsure; it scared her to the utmost extent.

"We have to do something. We can't just leave her here. She'll think we've abandoned her. The nightmares and dreams might even advance to a new level. We have to do _something_." The begging, pleading, imploring tones colored her voice like a stain of blood. He could see the tears welling in her eyes, how bloodshot and tired they were. Weariness took over her form and she rested her head softly against his chest.

"We have to do _something_ for her, Remus." With her eyes closed, she leaned against him in a gesture of a last argument.

With her last words spoken, Remus gently plucked her standing form from the ground, carried her in his arms, limp and sleeping, over to one of the comfortable, white hospital chairs and placed her sleeping figure next to the bed on which his daughter rested motionless and prone. Her eyes closed against the world and the events happening beyond her unconscious state.

* * *

Out in the hall, Remus was informing the doctor of their leave from the hospital. They would be checking out in a matter of fifteen minutes or so. Beyond the heavy polished slab of door that led into the main part of Selina's room, the girl herself laid still sleeping and dreaming even on the whitewashed nothingness of the sheets. Her mouth moved in a breathy, ragged way, fisting the sheets and gripping them as if she was in pain, discomfort.

"No, no." The moan and imploring whisper—coating her voice like a glaze and catching her words like insects in a spider web—didn't reach anything farther than the floor on which they plopped and puddle upon. "Please, no. Don't. No!" her voice rose as he forced herself against the blankets that covered her sweating, writhing form. She struggled against the sheets as if it were some sort of _thing_ swallowing her whole. Her voice rose inch by inch against the walls, covering them in an absolute moist sheet of velvety fright.

What exactly was she dreaming about?

The squealing squelch of her muffled voice crawling beneath the door with tentacles of fear and adrenaline coating the words she said. "GET AWAY FROM ME! DADDY, HELP ME!"

She called for Remus and the wide-eyed open-mouthed figure of her father turned from the coated man he was speaking to in the hallway. Worried and gasping for the very sweetness of air that kept him calm, he pushed every ounce of weight against the heavy wooden door to fight his way into the hospital room.

Selina lay on the bed, shaking, sweating, sleeping. She was screaming for him. For him to help her escape whatever dream, whatever horror she was trapped in.

Remus was pushed back away from the bed by the brawling figure of the doctor. He held her tight against the bed and she only flailed harder against his strength. Remus forced the dark head of the doctor away from his daughter and shoved him hard away from her. Still, Selina was trapped inside of her own nightmare. "DADDY!"

As he approached the bed, he jerked the covers and blankets away from her writhing form. She was in a hospital shawl, the blue dots coating her perspiring body in a puzzling daze. Her lifted her prone figure away from the sheets, and she threw her scrawny arms around his neck, her hands fisting the light grey mass of his sweater. He thought she would never let go of him. The expression that etched itself in the doctor's face could have been angry, frustrated, but it was along the lines of stern and concentrated.

He muttered that they could go, that he would send the bill to their registered address. Through all of this Remus did not realize that Dora sat alert and frazzled in the comforting cushion of the chair she had sat in.

"Let's go home Remus."

But still, as Tonks stepped to Remus' side, Selina sat staring at the door where she saw the advancing nightmare of her predator. He was closing in on her. And soon he would be crushing the air out of her lungs, his hands bound tight against her throat.

He was getting closer, closer, so close. And she was becoming his own claustrophobic prey. He was making a game out of her. And apparently he was enjoying the horror and fear cutting tightly and painfully into her face.


End file.
